Raised in San Antonio and best remembered as the ingenue fronting Austin's 8 1/2 Souvenirs, Bell is celebrating the release of her long-awaited solo album "This Train," which was produced by director David Lynch.

Bell, 33, describes her style as "really letting go."

She's nearly the same age as Marilyn Monroe when the actress and sex symbol famously cooed breathless birthday wishes to President Kennedy. Like Monroe, Bell is at that point in her life where she's in full control of an assured and smoldering appeal.

"This Train" is retro unlike anything heard from Amy Winehouse, Duffy or Adele. This is Twin Peaks set in the Cotton Club - or Elvis' Graceland bedroom. (Natalie Wood's let-me-entertain-you moments in Gypsy come to mind, too.)

Like Lynch's film work, reality is unreal. Bell played along.

"David was hanging out with Elizabeth Taylor, and it turned out that she was the first person to hear This Train," she said matter-of-factly. "He would drop these little nuggets."

Lynch's distinctive audio stamp is all over the record, which was written, developed and produced at his home studio in the Hollywood Hills over the course of 13 years. He wrote all the music - from intensely spiritual to blatantly erotic - for his giggly, wide-eyed muse.

She is Grace Kelly to his Alfred Hitchcock, Scarlett Johansson to his Woody Allen.

They met in 1998 at Lynch's Hollywood home, the backdrop for his movie "Lost Highway," when Bell was 20. She was under contract to RCA-Victor, and her agent set up the meeting so Lynch could hear a demo of her work. He was immediately smitten, she said, and wanted to direct and mold Bell "like an actress."

How strong was the attraction?

"We had this really lovely, instant kind of musical chemistry," said Bell, whose role was to create the melody and mood for the words. "We wrote a song together that day!"

That song, "Right Down to You," is the second track on the album, available at www.chrystabell.com.

The next meeting took place two years later. Bell acknowledges she wondered whether the musical collaboration was "a beautiful side project to the conversation and relationship" with Lynch.

"There were times when I thought, 'Well, gosh. Maybe I'm creating this record all for the experience of getting to be around this extraordinary person.' And really, it would have been worth it."

"He's really a special spirit ... he's all about quieting the mind through the science of transcendental meditation, creating peace from within. It's almost like this secret that I finally get to share."

The sound of the record - "Lynch-ian and outrageous," in Bell's words - is spacious, lush, haunting, inspired, theatrical and even prayerful.

"It definitely has its own space," she said. "It's like a David Lynch movie, indie with some mainstream sensibilities. David's musical voice is very singular."

The mysterious Mr. Lynch provided a prepared statement about the project via email, which was relayed by his muse: "Chrysta Bell is round and fully packed. And she can sing, too. In fact, she can sing real good."

Besides recording her, Lynch photographed Bell extensively.

"This Train" covers a wide spectrum of life experience. During the time, Bell sang gigs around the world, acted on TV and had one album project shelved (the bizarre "Strange Darling," produced by Lynch). She also appears on the soundtrack to Lynch's Inland Empire.

She says she learned "patience and surrender."

"I really grew up," she said. "I really became more an adult and a woman through the process of writing this music."

Bell, an Alamo Heights High School graduate and daughter of dentist A.D. Zucht and singer Sunny Markham, picked Thursday to release "This Train" to coincide with her late stepdad's birthday. Mitchell Markham owned and operated Emerald Studios.

Bell says she's moved to the West Coast for good - maybe. She hopes to bring her visual live act to San Antonio and Austin soon. Plans are to play South by Southwest 2012.

"I'd been in Texas so long, the distractions were starting to overcome me," she said about her recent move from Austin to San Francisco. "Austin and San Antonio are always my home. That will never change. But I'm a gypsy."